Incandescent headlight lamp



Aug. 1965 R. MICKLEY INCANDESCENT HEADLIGHT LAMP Filed Aug. 31, 1962 lNVE/VTOR. Rolf Mickley by M f m ATTORNEYS.

United States Patent 3,2.li2,858 ENCANFDESQENT HEADLEGHT LAME Rolf Michiey, 3/111 Elizabethstrasse, Munich 13, Germany Filed Aug. 31, 1962, er. No. 225L831 Claims priority, application Germany, Sept. 1, H61, M 51,265 1 Claim. (Cl. 313-411) This is a continuation-in-part of application Serial No. 207,678 filed July 5, 1962.

The parabolic main headlights for motor vehicles known in the prior art, on the one hand, produce high beam which is strongly difiused and blinding in all directions, and, on the other hand, emit a dimmed down beam. The high beam has lately become objectionable for practical purposes on account of the steadily increasing density of trafiic on roads at night, so that the high beam can hardly be utilized any longer. While in the past, the high beam represented the type of lighting which was used most of the time and the dim light was used only as an auxiliary light, the situation has nowadays been reversed. The almost continuous driving with the dimmed, short-range headlights, however, due to the rather limited visibility, forces the maintaining of low driving speeds which do not contribute to a steady flow of night traflic, particularly on express highways and certainly do not increase driving safety.

The object of the invention is to provide an improvement of this situation through extensive glare-reducing adjustment of the high beam, so that the otherwise strongly blinding emanation of light rays, which in its present practical application on vehicles emits its light rays intensively obliquely upwardly above the level of the headlights, is avoided and the blinding emanation of light rays is reduced to such a degree that essentially there remains only a concentrated and broad horizontal beam of light rays at the height of the headlight from the entire headlight with, at the same time, a downward-directed diflused beam. The degree of illumination required by high driving speeds is thus attained not only in the form of a farreaching beam of a long-range beam of rays directed straight ahead, but also the road illumination is improved considerably, both as to the surface as well as to the shoulders of the road.

In View of the fact that up to the present, it is not technically feasible to make a sufficiently small punctiform light source for conventional parabolic headlights to achieve an ideal non-blinding illumination, the invention aims at an approximation of the effect of such a light source producing similarly non-blinding headlight rays by utilizing the main or high beam filament passing through or around the free focal point of the reflector, on the one hand, and by adding inside-mirrored screening "ice means located relative to such filament in certain referenceplanes, on the other hand.

The figure is a side, cross-sectional view taken through the axis of the parabolic reflector.

The invention is characterized by the fact that in accordance with the figure of the attached drawing the illuminating body 3 for the high beam comprising a spirally coiled filament, which extends longitudinally in the direction of the parabolic axis through or surrounding the focal point 2, which has its filament coils or windings exposed within or to the side of the parabolic axis, the ends of the filament windings extending in front and behind the focal point, in combination with a first shielding means 5 extending below the filament from the outer extremity thereof up to approximately the center of the axis of the coiled filament 3 of the illuminating body, and a second shielding means 6 extending above and along the remainder of coiled filament of the illuminating body, said pair of shielding means being provided with inside mirrored and outside frosted surfaces, said shielding means being either hemispherical or curved or straight with lateral faces 4 protruding at the sides, the twoshielding portions 5 and 6 being directed toward the focal point and ending close to or at the vertical plane 8, said vertical plane d extending longitudinally to the axis of the headlight through the focal point of the headlight parabolic reflector 7. The shielding means 5 and 6 can also be provided with recesses to accommodate the spirally wound filament 3. The illuminating body for the auxiliary or dim beam which is only directed downwardly is located within the shielding part 5 most nearly adjacent the bulb socket in a suitably adapted position and form.

I claim:

In a headlight lamp of the type having a high and a dim beam and a parabolic reflector, the improved illuminating means for the high beam comprising an illuminating element comprising a coiled filament extending longitudinally along the axis of said parabolic reflector and having its windings extending around the focal point with the respective ends thereof in front and behind said focal point, a first shielding means extending below the filament coil from the outer extremity of the latter up to said focal point, a second shielding means extending above and along the remainder of said coiled filament,

the interior surfaces of said shielding means have mirrored surfaces and the'exterior surfaces thereof being frosted.

Reierences Qited by the Examiner UNITED STATES PATENTS 1,451,161 4/23 Helm 313-114 X GEORGE N. WESTBY, Primary Examiner. 

